Harvard Scientists Create 'Smart' Liquid: The Discovery That Could Change Everything (Video)

This superfluid has a number of tunable properties, including elasticity, optical behavior, viscosity, and the ability to transition between Newtonian and non-Newtonian states.

In a pioneering development Scientists for school Engineering and applied sciences (seas) from Harvard They created a meta-fluid capable of adapting to them Properties in order to.

the research Which was published in the prestigious magazine natureIt represents a major leap forward in materials science and engineering. Metafluid, which is a suspension of small rubber domains, exhibits transformative behavior under different pressures. When these balls bend under pressure, they cause dramatic changes in the properties of the fluid.

The implications of this innovation cover a variety of areas, from Robotics reach to Mechanical Engineer. Imagine hydraulic actuators with the ability to adapt to changing conditions, or robots programmed with intelligent shock absorbers able to adjust energy absorption based on the severity of the impact. Additionally, optical devices using this superfluid can seamlessly transition from transparency to opacity, paving the way for advanced optical technologies.

Adel Jalouli, Research Associate in Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering at SEAS and first author of this paper, highlights the huge potential of this new class of fluids. “We're just scratching the surface of what's possible with this platform“, notes Al-Jalouli. In fact, the versatility of metaphoretic fluids suggests countless applications in various industries.

While metamaterials, which derive their properties from structure rather than composition, have played a major role in many applications, solid metamaterials have limitations. Unlike their solid counterparts, volatiles have a unique ability to flow and conform to the shape of their container. Katja Bertoldi, professor of applied engineering at SEAS and lead author of the paper, emphasizes the importance of this distinction. “the Our goal was to create a meta-fluid that not only had great properties, but also provided programmable viscosity and optical propertiesBertoldi explains.

The manufacturing technology used in this research, which was developed in the laboratory of David A. Weitz, professor of physics and applied physics, is highly scalable. By producing hundreds of thousands of deformable, air-filled spherical capsules and suspending them in silicone oil, the research team laid the foundation for scalable production of this transformative material.